Don't You Dare Forget the Sun
by drowninginfanaticdomains
Summary: AU: In a post-apocalyptic world, half brothers Alfred and Matthew struggle to live. For the most part, they're all the other's got, until the day that Alfred has to leave for work; their happiness and well-being, he says, is the most important thing. Until the day that something much, much worse takes hold. (RusAme, PruCan, slight AmeCan)
1. Prologue

**Prologue**

**The air smelled distinctly of rotting flesh.**

Nothing new in his city- or what remained of the alpine, imposing structures that had once lined the bustling streets and sidewalks. It had once been a great place, so many years before, in the time when the Madness hadn't hit yet and bodies didn't line the streets, when abandoned buildings, half-collapsed and decrepit, had been as elegant as the men and women that walked the streets (which, usually, wasn't much to look at, but it was home).

Like any place, there had been murder and thievery and your everyday tragedy, but there had been the good parts too, like the green-grassed parks and smiling children and real, _live _people. There were too few of those now, at least those that weren't only hours, maybe days away from death. That's what his city had been reduced to.

But, it wasn't what he was here to focus on. That was the past, a thing to reminisce about in his miserable free time (oh, what a wonderful thing to muse on, he thought). He had a new goal in mind now, one he had to be absolutely determined to fill- they would come for him soon, and this was his final wish, in a strange, twisted way. He refused to die before he did one last thing. Something he had, appallingly, been putting off for years.

It had always been a heavy weight in his chest, pulling down his heart. Once, he had had great plans, extravagant plans, when the world was normal. In the times when he and his lover were happy, together, and the grass had been green, and everything hadn't stank of rotten flesh and the air be filled only with the cacophony of hungry crows. With the last bit of pride he held in the world, he was more than determined to finish what he had promised to those small bundles so many years ago.

Even if it killed him.

So now, his focus was the building he approached with cumbersome, agonized steps, wincing when he stepped on the stray rocks and chunks of concrete of the little the once-road and sent them clattering to the other side and into the side of an unrecognizable structure that he thought maybe had once been a storage facility. It, like most other buildings in this section of the city, was mostly gone, the valuable metal that once held it together sold for goods years before and the stone pulled into dismal piles.

Only the wall of the first level seemed to remain, a crumbled staircase leaning dangerously against the back partition. To any random passerby (not that many dared to go to this part of the city; it was often infested) the building would have appeared abandoned and inaccessible. Which, mostly, was true- the top part was, it is to be said, unsafe and probably some poor bloke's expectant death. But what many did not ponder on was the basement, the entrance hidden safely behind the ruins of another decaying edifice. And he knew exactly how to get there.

Heavy bricks clattered noisily as they fell to the earth, sending up dust into the air with a small puff of winced at the noise, and then coughed as violently as he dared as he dragged in the particles, likely only furthering the damage to his already tar-addled lungs (he often regretted his teenage years). When he had finished pulling the bricks down from the wall that hid the door to his destination, piling them at his feet, he stepped through into the back of the old warehouse. It itself, too, smelled like everything on the outside, carrion and death and the suffering of many. The Madness and the folly of all had taken so many- all of them put down before it could spread, enough of them torn down to pile the streets. It had been nearly thirty years now, a time that seemed nearly impossible to those that had been there since the beginning.

Closing the door and taking the steps as quickly as was possible on a bad leg ( it had been that way for a long time, the result of an incident a decade back) he soon reached the bottom, submerged in complete darkness. He flicked a switch (one he had to look hard for, one that really shouldn't still have been working, but did, thankfully) and a single bulb flickered into painful existence several feet in front of him, causing him to grimace at the sight he faced.

What remained of a room that had once been something of a utility closet/ basement was still no less grim, a cold stone box with a few personal items lying randomly across the maybe ten-by-ten room. There was a semi-alcove in one corner, presumably where the furnace and other mechanics of the building had once been; now there laid two thin, crusty mattresses, equally stained with blood and filth, the area around it holding very little.

But what caught his attention was not the state of the room, necessarily; it was the corpse that was crumpled in the middle of it, moldering and distributing its more than foul odor throughout the room. Of course, he knew it wasn't the "owners" of this humble abode. He had watched them leave this morning, one silent and statue-like as ever to go to work, the other meek and humble and trailing closely behind. This cadaver was fresh, probably only a couple of hours old, obviously a victim of the psychosis that followed the first symptoms of disease that had ravaged the land. He approached it with caution, knowing it could still easily be alive- and that even if it wasn't, the disease could still be alive within it.

Sighing, and cursing the fact that he was such a good person, he made his way towards the 'room', skirting carefully around the rabid remains and running a dirty hand through even dirtier and rattier hair that was now more gray and black then it was brown. It had originally been blond, when he was young, but the changing times had forced him to dye it more times than he could count, and it had resulted in the short, tangled filth that now adorned his head. His thinking caused him to almost not notice the second thing in the basement, the broken boiler; from which stretched a nearly invisible line. One that was likely rigged to kill him. Well, intruders.

"Amateurs," he muttered, ducking easily under the wire. Despite his judgment, he made sure to watch for any more clever little traps, and spotted several on his short walk to the mattress. There was a small land mine in front of the entrance, one he nervously wondered how the squatters of the abode had acquired. He figured, with a sharp shrug a moment later, that they had probably bought it; the worker's job didn't offer him much money, but it didn't take long to save up for a prize from the market these days. (He was just glad he had turned the light on ahead of time).

Stepping carefully over the explosive, he crouched down near the closest mattress. In spite of the fact that he had never been here before, he knew exactly where to look first. It was a spot he had taught them how to use right before he'd left, a trick that they'd thought nothing much of but one he himself had used plenty of times in his life. He knew it had saved them many times already, and for that he was happy. (Or he would have no purpose now).

When he was done, he left the way he came, barely trying to conceal his entrance. By the time they returned, he would be long gone, deep into the heart of the city, more than likely hiding to buy his ass another few minutes and another stolen chance. But for the last time, no doubt. With a pitying look back at the ruins of a once-great building, he turned and shuffled away. As he did, he uttered the only words he could think of, hoping to hell and back that they might work, even a _little_:

"Good luck, boys." _You're going to need it._


	2. Chapter One

**Chapter One**

Around a hundred bodies hung limply from the ceiling, strung up by hands and necks and feet. They were in neat rows of ten or twenty down, nothing much of a spectacular sight, nothing new in Alfred Jones' life. The metallic, tangy odor of blood, the stench of putrid flesh, the constant buzzing of flies and the sight of wriggling, off-white larvae, consuming their meal.

They were all familiar to Alfred, maybe comforting, though he would never voice that thought out loud. The only difference between the usual and now was that the corpses usually lined the streets or slumped against the walls of buildings, piled high in decaying heaps, rather than dangling from ropes, suspended from the thick beams of the long-since abandoned warehouse as they were now. It wasn't like Alfred hadn't seen it before- on the contrary, he saw it more than was probably healthy, the result of some psycho or necrophiliac that decided they wanted their own little collection of stinking dolls.

It was all part of the job. Alfred was a Graver, so his life practically revolved around gathering and burying the deceased. It wasn't pleasant, nor fun; on the contrary, it was grueling, back-breaking work, what with the body-dragging and the grave-digging and the barely being able to breathe through the odor of decomposing tissue throughout the air. He'd only been assigned the position a little over a year ago now, though it had all passed by in one big blur of feeding himself and Matthew. The one contrast between pre-graving life and the one he led now was the lack of physical labor in his previous existence, and smaller relations now.

His family hadn't consisted of much. It had once only been him and his father, his mother long gone. At some point, another man had shown up, Arthur's lover- they had met, oddly enough, through a common ex-wife, the woman that had given Arthur his child Alfred and the man, Francis, his glowing, violet-eyed little Matthew. Alfred had attached to the younger one immediately, claiming him as his adorable little brother, half-blood or not. It had been nice, until the night Arthur and the Frenchman had disappeared into the darkness, leaving behind two orphans with broken hearts.

Alfred had very vague memories of his parents, most of it taken over by the need to survive. His mother, he remembered, had been tall and elegant, dark skinned with eyes the color of cherries and a kind smile that very rarely had a even the slightest vicious edge. The smell of smoke, too- the woman had inhaled tobacco like a drowned man brought to air. His father had mentioned her far too often for Alfred's liking. He was the type to forget. She had died when he was a young child, barely toddling. But Alfred and Matthew had never quite forgiven her, either.

That was just how it was, though. Alfred had gained, over the years, more than enough connections on the streets, kids with similar stories and just as shaky grins. The small, unorganized government that still remained after the plague had found him and brought him in, told him what job he was to work at, and what he would receive for it. Simple as that. He was what was paying for him and Mattie, keeping them alive. His brother was a decent pickpocket, sure, that didn't go far and Alfred found it far too dangerous. Matthew was all he had left.

They both blended in well. Alfred was like every other Graver, with broad shoulders, large hands, strong arms, a bad back. He was relatively tall and rarely ever looked like anything but a walking skeleton, with a pale complexion that had been gained from fatigue and hollow cheeks from a lack of nourishment. Sometimes it was hard to tell himself apart from the others, when they were in the bathroom, all teenage boys or young men that shared similar features, similar attitudes.

The typical garb of a Graver, unlike the extravagant robes of the Crackers or the Bookers, consisted of black everything. Everything from the t-shirt to the shoes was pure black, the only hint of color the person themselves and the filthy grey-white of the shoelaces. In the winter time, when it was especially cold and especially hard to get the bodies moved because of the ice and the added weight of water, they got a long black cloak; people liked to compare them to the Reaper's Guard, because of this, come to collect the dead. Yet no one seemed to think it was very funny.

The Reaper's Guard was, in short, made of the most dangerous and feared men and women in the city. They all wore blank, dead expressions, but it was their job that had earned them their name; more than a police force, the Reapers were the executioners of the city. The job, as it was said, had been around even before the outbreak. Imposing, god-like figures that catered to the "needs" of the government, removing the sick and infected and the old. Funny, considering half the population was decimated regardless.

The sight before him now was only testament to how quickly the epidemic had spread. The plague spread like wildfire, though its destruction had only been contained to the few dirty cities that made up the Broken Isle, the hellhole that Alfred and Matthew had been moved to when Alfred had been employed.

Alfred sighed as he continued to walk through the building, making a sour face up at the pieces of meat hanging limply from bright white bones. _These will be difficult to get down, _he thought, with only a hint of dissatisfaction. He'd had to do this before, so he knew how it worked, though that didn't mean he had to take any pleasure in the knowledge that this would probably be several days of tired, grueling work.

But that was the way it was.

It had been perhaps six years since Alfred had had any real friends. He had been only thirteen when his father had stolen away with his lover, Matthew even younger at eleven and twice as confused. Word had traveled fast enough on the streets, spread through the everlasting metaphorical grapevine, and the two brothers had been quickly convicted from their own home, a small abode that had been quickly given to another family. A _whole _family. They'd tried to put up a fight, but the Crackers (often called 'Evictors', and for a good reason) had dragged the small boys out by their hair, tossed them onto the street corner, and in the next moment had ushered in a prim Booker, a stoic Physician, and a scowling young boy with wide eyes that had grumbled the whole way in.

In no time, Alfred and Matthew had decided to relocate. Minutes, in fact, was all it took for them to decide that they needed to get off of the street, even as night fell and the wild yowls of the Infected spread through the cold air. For a long while, perhaps several months, they had squatted in the many abandon buildings in Old Motor, the dilapidated remains of what had once, long ago, been a city called Detroit in the state of Michigan, back when there was such a thing.

Alfred made friends quickly. It wasn't hard, as even at that age he was quite a charmer, with a bright smile and mischievously twinkling blue eyes (he had no honest idea how he'd ended up with those; Arthur's had been green, his mother's auburn) and shaggy blond hair that reminded people of a bright and colorful world that was so different from the stark grayness of the one they lived in now. He was slim and lean, a fact that made him look much younger than he was. Matthew was even slighter than he, and for awhile, neither of them had any problem begging for food from the kind strangers, or "accidentally grabbing" something from one of the local merchants and simply looking up at the owner with wide eyes and mewling pathetically and then walking away.

But Alfred got bigger fast. While Matthew remained more petite and slim, and both had very little body fat, Alfred's shoulders seemed to stretch out at a mile a minute and his face lost its little boy chub, leaving in its place a hardened young man. And soon, people no longer gave food to Alfred- even Matthew, who hadn't yet hit his growth spurt, was finding it harder and harder to obtain that needed nutrition. Within the course of only two years they both grew several inches, and received more than one or two scars from angry men, women, and other street rats like themselves.

At one point, a few months after they'd stopped being charity cases, they met Gilbert and Ludwig. The boys both had strange accents and light hair, the former sporting bright red eyes and a head of white fluff that he claimed was because of his extreme awesomeness. Ludwig was quiet and far more refined than his obnoxious older brother, and had been the first to give them food. Alfred had been prowling the streets, hoping for any sign of food, when a muttered curse in a language he later came to know as "German" crossed his ears.

He'd crept over to where he thought the source of the noise was, careful not to step on loose pieces of gravel or glass. The first thing he had seen were the eyes; they had startled him so much he'd nearly run, thinking it was one of the infected. Alas, the tight pain in his stomach had instead urged him to attack this stranger digging through a trash can behind a rusty bar that smelled of vomit and booze. What he hadn't realized, of course, was that this strange creature with the shock of bright white hair and cranberry eyes had a partner. A very overprotective, badass partner. His brother.

Seconds after he was clinging to Gilbert's back he was faced with the hard concrete and a boot on his back, holding him mercilessly down. Gilbert, without a doubt, was angry, cursing again in that strange tongue, wiping at a bloodied lip. He'd started to approach, more than likely to the kick the shit out of the big blond idiot that had attacked him, but he was blessedly held off by a raised hand from the one keeping Alfred pinned down. Alfred usually knew when he was in a bad situation; right then, every instinct screamed, _You're gonna die!_

Of course, he didn't die. The white haired one just rolled his eyes and turned away, plopping down on a rotted crate several feet away. The boot on his back was lifted soon after, and Alfred had figured whoever it had been was now going to beat the life out of him, but that didn't happen either. He scrambled quickly to his feet, instead, surprised by his sudden freedom, pausing as he heard an embarrassed "Wait!"

Well, the other boy, Ludwig, hadn't exactly said it in English- he'd called something along the lines of "Warten!", but Alfred had understood well enough. He'd stopped dead, and turned around just quickly enough for a sack to land in his arms. A sack, judging by the smell, filled with food. He'd given the two foreigners a bemused look, nodded his head once, and run.

Two weeks later, he ran into them again. This time, Gilbert attacked _him, _and once again was halted by his brother. The blond brother, hidden behind a pile of rubble, had shouted, "Wait, you idiot! It's him!" The white-haired one backed off, grinned a rather manic grin, and held his hands up in mock surrender and backed away slowly as Alfred sprung to his feet, blood pumping through his veins. He hadn't been far from their current hideout then- he could have called to Mattie for help, but somehow he doubted the younger brother would gladly participate in a battle against two obviously more well-trained fighters with only his clumsy brother at his side.

Despite his new size (at age fifteen, he was already almost six-foot-one) and the muscle he'd gained from years in a constant fight for his life, Alfred had not yet grown used to his body, the longer legs and the bigger hands. He felt uncomfortable, and definitely not ready to brawl. He, too, had backed away.

He didn't know when he'd become friends with the two brothers. That day, Ludwig explained that "because of their last encounter" Alfred owed the two a debt- which, he supposed, he did. In return for even more food, all the Germans had asked for was shelter. And Alfred had given it to them, but reluctantly. He'd consulted Matthew first. As soon as they had met, Gilbert had started clinging to Mattie like a leech, all over-energized and sarcastic and albino. Matthew hadn't wanted them to go.

And as far as Alfred knew, they hadn't. But that July, sometime in the middle of a hot day when Alfred and Matthew were as far underground as possible to escape the heat, the Crackers had come again. Alfred and Matthew both had been far more ready than the years before when they'd been forced from their home, but this time the enforcers hadn't come to remove them from the premises; they'd arrived to employ the eldest brother.

Alfred hadn't wanted to go, of course; he was determined to protect the seemingly fragile Mattie with all he had, but when Mattie pointed out that they'd get more food, and more resources, and that maybe from here it could get _better-_ well, Alfred hadn't resisted much. Those bright violet eyes of his brother could sway just about anyone, even if it was to their own death (_which, _he had thought back then, _maybe it could be._)

So Alfred had gone to work. Which, to say the least, hadn't been pleasant. In the outer city, where the brothers had stayed nearly their whole lives, there was nothing much but rumors and spooky noises late at night, nothing like what the inner city was made of. When he was younger, Arthur had told him stories about the world before the plague, and what kind of havoc the disease had wreaked on the comfortable world he and many others had once known. But he hadn't told them about the bodies.

As they'd gotten older, the brothers had heard rumors, whispers of the rot and ruin that lay within the guarded city, the kind of labor that was needed there- more than once, acquaintances they knew, might have even considered friends, had disappeared inside the walls and never returned. It had been part of Alfred's hesitancy to leave- he didn't care what happened to himself, but he couldn't leave Mattie, the only treasure he had left in the world, to fend for himself.

The first step through the gates of the city had been suffocating. Everyone could see, from any direction, the thick smog that floated near the tops of the buildings- but not once had he expected that the smothering air was low enough to creep into his lungs, to poison him. He'd nearly collapsed, and his brightly-dressed Cracker escorts (so in contrast with the grayness of the city) had had to hold him up most of the way to the barracks.

Next came the smell. The smell, by far, he thought, had to be the worst- the putrid stench of rotting intestines, and sulfur, and something indescribable, a scent he associated only with hell (because that was what this would be. Hell). Perhaps it had been his imagination, run astray from the fear and desolation all are around, but as they had dragged him past numerous dark corners, all he could imagine was there were skeletons, ghouls, maggots crawling from empty eye sockets as hands stretched towards him, fingers clawed, grasping- but that's silly, he rationalized. All of the skeletons lined the streets. They wouldn't move in front of people.

Alfred had later realized that the sights he saw as he entered into the city were nothing compared to what he would later lay hi eyes upon. The people of the city prospered, for the most part, though that was part of what he found the most disgusting- that while their relatives and siblings and children died, they lay in the lap of luxury, bringing in the mutts from the streets to to dispose of the ever-present rot that decorated their city. Once upon a time, he might have rebelled, screamed and shouted at them, threw rocks through their windows; now he kept his head down and walked patiently by, bodies often towed behind him like limp dolls on a chain.

He never got to go home, for the most part. That first day, they had shoved him into barracks, stating that they'd be back later to give him his new clothes, and his schedule. He had laid contemplatively on his bed, wondering if it was really the right choice- wondering if leaving Matthew behind had been the best option, if they shouldn't have just shot the Crackers down and run and continued to live off of the streets. One part of his mind reminded him that this was the best possible option, and that Lady Luck was likely shining down on them, for _once _in their lives; the other just worried. When a Cracker returned later with his schedule, Alfred had been appalled. It had read:

**OLD MOTOR WORK FACILITY: GRAVING**

**LABORER: ALFRED FRANKLIN JONES (16. 6'0". 178 LBS. BLUE/BLOND. APT)**

**SCHEDULE: ****FULL-TIME**

**BREAK: PER MONTH**

**QUARTERS: BUNKER**

That had been it. Really, that had been when Alfred had truly begun to question his choices, gnawing on his nails, frustratedly attempting to throw the light piece of paper across the room (failing). Maybe he'd tried to convince himself that it would be different; that Mattie _wouldn't _have to fend for himself for weeks at time, that his big brother would be there maybe once a week to see how he was doing, to give him some cash, to beat up anyone who'd been messing with the quiet, well-meaning boy. He'd been furious that he hadn't seen it before- and as the first weeks went by, he only got angrier.

His job was wretched. Some senior Gravers- all dulled eyed and hunch-backed, sallow skinned, pale- had had to explain to him what exactly it was he'd be doing for quite possibly the rest of his life. Alfred had gotten the gist of it; he was the labor that was required to move the bodies from the streets and burn them. He had thought that that would be bad enough; and then the days had come when they'd showed him his first _warehouse, _the first bus, the crumbling house of a family that had perished early on, so many tragedies bundled up into one area that he was sure he was gonna crack. By the time his 'break time' came around, he hadn't been able to leave. The next month, after _even more of it, _after sleepless nights spent vomiting and crying and screaming 'why?!' at no one in particular, he'd been able to return home.

Matthew hadn't been there. Alfred had later discovered him at another hideout, with Gilbert and Ludwig. Alfred had been surprised, but glad; he owed the German brothers his life. He'd brought them all a bag of food (more than any of them had ever seen; he'd loved the way Matthew's eyes had gone wide with disbelief) and left. It took an hour or two to get from the inner city bunker to their makeshift home, and he was expected back by midnight. Several months passed by like this; and then came the day when his schedule was changed.

**OLD MOTOR WORK FACILITY: GRAVING**

**LABORER: ALFRED FRANKLIN JONES ****(16. 6'0". 178 LBS. BLUE/BLOND. APT)**

**SCHEDULE: FULL TIME**

**BREAK: PER MONTH**

**QUARTERS: CHOSEN**

He'd nearly cried in relief. It was to be a tough schedule to keep, sure; he still worked full time, from dawn until dusk. But he'd finally be able to be closer to Mattie, and he wouldn't have to worry so much, would be able to feed him, take care of him; he'd packed up his meager belongings (a few black t-shirts; a jacket; a single pair of filthy, worn black pants) and left immediately after his shift ended. He'd arrived to the shocked faces of Matthew and the Germans, had hugged his brother, shown him the schedule. The younger had nearly screamed with joy, tears beginning to leak out of his eyes. They'd had to discuss where they could go so that Alfred could be closer to the city; but they were happy, and that was all that mattered.

Until, of course, it _wasn't._


End file.
